Mrs. Rahlo's Closet and Other Mad Tales Read online

  Not since infant years had I felt aught of dislike or of dread for mummy places. Yet this tomb I much misliked because it was carven in an ape’s head. I hung back some moments, hesitating whether to sing my ancient song of the barber and the drunken slave. Instead, I unsheathed my great knife to prise open the massive door.

  It opened easily, though none there could have been to oil its hinges. Beyond the door was darkness. I tarried some instants, then, with shaking hands, drew forth my tinderbox, struck steel to stone, lit my tiny lamp, and stepped inside.

  I stood in a long chamber, excessively damp, filled with slabs bearing the largest mummies I had ever seen. Something about their posture I did not like, though as yet I dared not shine my lamplight fully upon them. One mummy caught my eye even in the indirect lamplight, for it seemed to wear a fanciful headdress of black iron. I raised my lamp high to peer along the chamber to the farthest end. It was riven with tunnels. I stepped back to lean against the wall.

  A soft wet thing touched my bare arm. Hastily I jumped away and flashed my lamp around. Soft mold furred the walls, wet mold, quivering slightly, like a thing alive. I shed the lamplight fully on the mummies. They were frozen to a rigid posture, reaching for the growing mold, their mouths gaped greedily open.

  Hastily I gathered some of the mold inside my leathern bag, my hand shaking so the lamp sent eerie shadows against the walls. In my eagerness to withdraw, I must have bumped the mummy with the crown of iron. For the crown rolled off the stone slab and clashed to the pavement, awaking echoes in the corridors that reached far down inside the rock. I raised the lamp.

  I beheld an apelike head with a mane of white hair. I lifted the lamp higher. This mummy lay next to the wall; the mold nearly touched its dried lips. I fled the tomb.

  What—my mind raced as I ran through the jungle—what would happen—my heart surged in rhythm to the words—what would happen when it tasted the mold?

  Hours later I tramped familiar paths and was much elated when I reached the tower.

  Though greatly wearied, I lost no time in climbing to the tower room, for I knew the Old One waxed impatient for my return.

  Instead of being greeted by the bubbling of red and amber liquids in crystal cylinders, I found the alchemical room cold and lifeless, save for a lonely copper lamp emitting a sickly fume.

  “Master,” I called. “I am returned.” I stepped to the tiger-skin curtains.

  “Master?”

  I heard a sharp intake of breath. The curtains parted. There on the throne sat—Nazzla. Now it was neither ape nor man. Now it was white. The fierce fangs, the mask of murderous hatred—white, all white. Slowly shaking its grinning ape-head, it peered at me through ghost eyes. Now I know why the master had gone into the jungle. He had embalmed Nazzla.

  Back and forth the great ape rocked on the throne, its ghost white head lolling from side to side, its distended mane swaying like a pendulum.

  I fled shrieking down the stairs, through the lower chambers, and into the room where lay the turbaned mummies of the priests.

  There stood the Old One, flagrantly attired in a robe of scarlet and gold. The beaten copper bowl simmered on a tripodal brazier.

  “The mold,” he said.

  “Master, upstairs—Nazzla!”

  “It took a piece of mummified ape to perfect the solution. The mold.”

  I handed him my leathern bag. He spooned a quantity of mold into the bowl, and blew upon the coals. The liquid within bubbled, rose high, then dried and collapsed to a red powder.

  “Master,” I said. “Nazzla sits on your throne.”

  But he was unmindful of all I said. His eyes seemed to light the room.

  Now he passed to the thirteen black-robed, turbaned mummies on their wooden trestles, and deposited a spoonful of the rectified red powder between every pair of withered lips.

  One by one, the mummies turned white. Each opened its eyes.

  The master stood away and said a single word of power.

  One by one the turbaned mummies rose to whisper in his ear; as each did so, it passed out of the chamber.

  Twelve times did this occur. Twelve times did the Old One scowl and say in deepest scorn, “Pah, it knows it not.”

  At last uprose the thirteenth, the tallest and most withered. It walked stiffly to the master and bent down to his ear. Then it passed out of the chamber.

  A beatific look illumined the Old One’s face, and he smiled a terrible smile and spoke the words: “Now I wield the power of the ancient dead.” Then his smile fell as his face began to whiten. He laid himself upon a wooden trestle, turned stone white, and passed into mummification.

  A shadow fell upon the wall. I looked behind. Nazzla’s mummy opened wide its jaws and screamed.

  Vibrant with power, screaming their death screams, the apes surged into the chamber, shattering the instruments, hurling the trestles against stone walls. Foaming madness raged in their maniacal effort to demolish all they could seize.

  Down came the shelves of priceless ointments, the lacquered cabinets. Pungent fumes arose as canopic jars cracked, spilling attars, oils, and unguents over the littered floor. Inlaid chests burst to splinters beneath thunderous feet.

  A flash of gold and vermilion. The vast tapestry had become a cloak across the slouching shoulders of a great ape descending from the tower room.

  The Old One’s scroll was tossed aside to lie among the mounting heap of wreckage.

  Then, lo! Amid the cacophony, the black-robed, turbaned mummies filed in from the adjoining chamber. As the apes turned to meet them, the mummies raised shriveled arms, made claws of shrunken fingers, and sank black splintered teeth into the apes’ throats. Three apes died on the floor, strangling in their own blood, while others fell upon the mummies, snapping the dried, thin bones, gnawing black integument off yellowed skulls—till the mummies burst to dust.

  Now the apes slouched toward my master’s body, lying supine upon its trestle. But I was quicker than they. Brandishing my great knife, I planted myself before the Old One.

  As the first ape lunged for me, I stabbed the knife point into its throat, withdrawing the blade as the mighty ape, gurgling with blood, went crashing to the floor. Then I wielded the knife like a sword—slicing, biting deeply the apish necks, severing tendons, chopping away at hair, muscle, and flesh.

  Suddenly the very air exploded with screams. The apes gave way as out of the jungle countless mummies poured into the chamber. Apes died, but mummy after mummy cracked to powder. The room became clouded with mummy dust.

  Something dealt me a blow that sent me reeling to the floor. My knife was gone. I had one last glimpse of that hellish scene, then fled the din and devastation, that accursed jungle, and eventually fell in with Sumerian traders.

  Though much I wander down the years, that last sight remains as a scar sealed with corrosive acid. Upon its trestle lay my master’s ghost white mummy. And its lips—its moving lips spoke to one bending low to catch the words. I screamed when that one stood up. Towering beside my master’s trestle, a look of terrible intelligence on its mummy face, was Nazzla.

  Edna

  B eware my anfractuosities, Edna. They can be mordacious.”

  “Were you speaking to me, sir? My name is not Edna.”

  The large man paused to wipe his sweat-spotted face with a red bandanna.

  “It does no good to inspissate, Edna.”

  They stood at a deserted bus stop. No bus in sight.

  “You mistake me for somebody else.” She edged around to the other side of the bench to stare in the direction where the bus would come. She looked fortyish, blond, petite. He was perhaps fifty-five.

  He removed his straw sportsman’s hat and wiped his mostly bald head with the red bandanna. He stared at her, stared through her in the direction from which the bus still had not come.

  In a moment he was beside her. “I can growl, Edna. Want to hear me growl?”

  She walked, fast, but he remained beside her.


  “Why do you keep up this futile pretense, Edna?”

  She stopped long enough to look him squarely in the face.

  “I will call a policeman if you do not go away.”

  “Police, police.” Only it was he who called. “Police!”

  The street remained empty of all but a few parked cars.

  “I can call the firemen next, Edna. Shall I call the firemen? Firemen. Hey, firemen.”

  Then a squad car did arrive, passed them, turned around, and stopped. Two uniformed officers got out.

  “My wife,” the big man explained. “She pretends not to know me.”

  “Is that right?” the first policeman asked her.

  “No, I don’t know him. He came up to me.”

  “Her name is Edna,” the big man said.

  “No, no it isn’t. It’s Lucy, Lucy Mulcahey.” She popped open her purse, fumbled for identification.

  The second policeman took her wallet, scanned the cards inside. “Just a moment,” he said. The two policemen retired a few feet away to confer. The big man produced the bandanna and began to swab his face. The woman’s fingers made little twitching movements, like a bird’s legs etching along a perch.

  The policemen came back.

  “You’d better go along with him, Edna,” the first policeman said.

  “I tell you my name is Lucy Mulcahey. My identification.”

  “Yeah.” The second policeman winked. “We crossed that out. It says Edna now, just plain Edna.” He turned to the big man. “Last name?”

  “Monkhouse.”

  “Monkhouse.” The policeman wrote it down. “Well, you go with hubby, Mrs. Monkhouse. You go home and make it up.”

  She ran now, crazily, her legs flailing against the hard pavement. After three-quarters of a block she stumbled but caught a lamppost and hugged it. She turned to look back. The three of them stared at her.

  Suddenly the bus arrived. She waved, and it stopped, and she was aboard and found change in her purse; then she collapsed onto an empty seat.

  The bus halted at the bus stop where she ran away. The big man got aboard.

  She did not faint or even scream.

  He paid his fare and walked right by her, sitting in the seat just behind. She sat rigidly, eyes forward.

  “Hello, Doll,” a male voice said behind her.

  “Charlie. Where you been?” A female voice.

  “Been arguing with Edna. She’s mad at me.”

  Someone whispered in her ear.

  “You shouldn’t tease Charlie so much.”

  She turned around. It was a large brunette. She turned back again and began to sob wildly—to leave this bus, quickly—to get home—somehow—

  The bus stopped again. She looked up to see a belt buckle.

  “You mustn’t make trouble, Miss.”

  It was the bus driver.

  “This man—” She was crying uncontrollably.

  “My wife,” Charlie explained tactfully.

  “She ain’t well.” This from the large brunette.

  “He’s not my husband.”

  “Edna”—this from Charlie—“the children. Please come home now. It’s at the next stop, driver.”

  Before she knew it she was off the bus and herded between them, Charlie and the large woman—each supporting her by an arm. They walked her down a tree-hung residential street.

  A police car passed, executed a U-turn, and stopped. The officer at the wheel rolled down his window. “Everything all right, Edna?” He tipped her a wink and drove off.

  They took her to a white wooden house and pushed her inside. They led her upstairs to the back part of the house, into a room, and onto a bed.

  Charlie smiled benignly. “We’re locking you in while Doll and I fetch our surgical tools from the basement. Be right back.” The door slammed, and she heard the lock click. The window stood open. There was a narrow ledge and a drainpipe, and she got partway down, then fell and hurt herself, but she did not hurt herself so badly that she could not run away.

  She wandered for blocks till she found herself crossing a main intersection. A taxi turned the corner. Somehow she gathered courage to hail it and give her address.

  • • •

  The spare figure of her husband waited in the open doorway. She handed the cab man a bill, then ran to her husband, pulled him inside, and slammed and locked the door.

  “Jack, I’ve been through horror. Jack? Jack!”

  “Why are you so late? What’s happened? Your dress.”

  “There was a man at the bus stop—and the police—”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Our dinner guests. Just when you’re upset—I’ll tell them you’re ill and send them away.”

  “Our guests—?”

  “The man from Phoenix—he’s bringing his wife. I told you.”

  “I—I can’t think. Wait, yes, he wants to invest in your business. It’s terribly important—Oh, they keep ringing! I don’t know—I must be in shock—”

  “I’ll send them away. I’ll get Dr. Jim.”

  “No. Later. This means too much to you. Later, after they leave, we’ll get Dr. Jim. I’ll tell you everything, and we’ll discuss what to do. I’ll be all right till then.”

  She washed and brushed and changed her clothes and was able after a while to control her trembling. Twenty minutes later she returned to the living room.

  “My wife Lucy,” Jack said to his guests. “Lucy, this is Charlie and Doll. Lucy?”

  She found herself on the sofa when she came to. The big man stood over her.

  “I let you escape, Edna. I thought we would have more fun here. Jack’s gone over to fetch your neighbor Dr. Jim. Doll is upstairs going through your things.”

  “Who are you?” she managed to whisper, her eyes wide but unseeing.

  “Don’t go telling on me, Edna. People who tell on me lose pieces. Now let’s have some sex before your husband gets back.” The door banged open as Jack returned with the doctor.

  She tried to speak, but her feelings were too wide for her throat. She could only cry, wildly, brokenly. The big man made drinks for Jack and himself and Doll. The doctor led Lucy into the bedroom and closed the door.

  “That man—that man in there—” Suddenly she could speak. The doctor looked grave.

  “Your pulse is dangerously fast.” As always, his booming voice attested authority. “Try to stay calm. I’m going to nip home for a sedative to give you, Lucy. I’ll be right back to talk to your friend. Don’t worry. I’ll leave the door open. If you get nervous, call Jack.”

  Before she could say “Don’t go” he was gone.

  She counted silence for six beats of her heart.

  “She have these spells before?” Charlie’s voice.

  “No. She was upset.” Jack spoke now. “Something about what the police did at a bus stop. I didn’t hear the whole story.”

  “Your poor wife.” It was Doll. “You look sick, too. You should get some fresh air. You got a garden? You stay here, Charlie, in case the doctor needs something.” Their voices moved off.

  Alone in the house with Charlie.

  She could scream. She could surely scream. Jack was only as far away as the garden. Dr. Jim would return any second. No one could hurt her with Jack and Dr. Jim so near.

  What if she couldn’t scream?

  “Lucy.” Dr. Jim was back.

  “Take this now. Swallow it. It will calm you down.”

  “Oh, Dr. Jim. That man.”

  “Swallow the pill, Lucy.”

  She swallowed the pill.

  “That’s better. It will relax you. You don’t have to do anything but lie there. Jack and I will do the rest. Now excuse me one more time.” He was out the door. She heard him as he passed from the hallway into the living room.

  “I say, Mr—?” his voice boomed.

  “Charlie.”

  “Yes, well, Charlie. Lucy has mentioned some things. Come with me a moment. The kitchen will do. I wa
nt to ask you a few questions.” She heard the kitchen door slam.

  It will be all right now. Dr. Jim is in charge. He will make everything all right. She lay for several minutes thinking of how right everything would be.

  The kitchen door banged open.

  “Hey,” Charlie’s voice said. “Something’s wrong with that doctor. I think he’s dead.”

  Everything collapsed inside her until the voices came.

  “Look at his face,” yelled Jack’s voice. “What happened?”

  “He fell over,” Charlie’s voice said.

  “I’ll call an ambulance. Doll, will you look after Lucy?”

  “I’ll do it, Jack,” said Charlie.

  Now was the time to get out of bed. Now was the time to kick her legs onto the floor and stand up. Now was the time.

  “It’s me, Edna.” A figure filled the entrance. “Upstairs in the master bedroom is better. We’ll have more fun there.” He took her arm, oh, so gently, led her upstairs, and put her on the big bed, then stood between her and the doorway.

  Oh, Jack would fix him. Jack was small, but he was wiry. Jack would throw this man out of the house forever. Why was Jack taking so long? Her shoulders heaved. What was he doing down there? Her breaths came fast. Her eyes leaked scalding tears. Why didn’t Jack come up?

  Charlie sat on the bed.

  “Want to know who I am, Edna? I’m the guy who just killed your husband.”

  Now she could not even cry.

  “Jack’s a corpse on the floor. I put poison in his drink. He’s dead like that doctor. How about a kiss now, Edna?”

  Doll came into the room.

  “Charlie, her husband called the ambulance. You gotta finish her off quick.”

  Charlie’s hands began to stroke her hair.

  “Did you hear that, Edna? Before I killed him your husband called the ambulance. He called it for your friend the doctor, whom I also killed.”